Beux Rêves, Mon Amour
by raspberryjukebox
Summary: Demons and nightmares and haunted blue eyes. Hermione Granger, innocence burned away after the War. (Mostly) Canon. HG/RW. Oneshot.


_sweet dreams, my love._

**Beaux Rêves, Mon Amour**

* * *

_My days are bright and full of laughter, problems for me to solve, books for me to absorb, friends to tease and a person to love. I am respected, cherished, adored, and by some, feared. I am a hero. The brightest witch of my age. A pretty face and wild hair. By day, I am a strong women with the world laid out in front of her, to whom nothing is impossible._

_By night, I am a creature of twisted pain and fear, fear. My dreams are not so much as dreams, but yawning pits of blackened desires and malevolent actions, with evil writhing in the shadows, eliciting screams of agony and cackles of insane mania. I dream of war, of children dying, of mothers screaming, of fathers fighting sons and sons falling and their mothers screaming for their souls and pain and pain and pain-_

_Oh, if I could escape this hell and welcome instead the soft periwinkle clouds of my dreams before the war, of sparkling smiles and green fields and summer rains! If I could just dream of people I love, witness scenes of wondrous places and see the twinkle of the stars, maybe I wouldn't be so constantly terrified. I've learned to put on a brave face, an enticing smile, lay a benevolent hand on those still recovering the last battles, be a shoulder to cry on for those prisoners of war. I've learned how to trick everyone into thinking that I am still the pure, caring, bookworm of my Hogwarts days, but I'm not._

_The war has destroyed me. Rotted me from the inside out._

_I am Hermione Granger. I am a broken soul trapped inside a demon with a timid, bewitching smile._

* * *

JUNE 12, 1998

"Hermione Granger, Order of Merlin First Class, today you have been called in front of the Wizengamot to testify against Bellatrix Proserpina Druella Black Lestrange, for charges of torture, blackmail, kidnapping, assault, use of the Imperius and Cruciatus curses, and finally, murder by use of _Avada Kedavra_. You are called to give your personal testimony of the night that the defendant kidnapped you, Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, Dean Thomas, and the goblin Griphook. You were tortured with by use of the Cruciatus Curse, correct?"

"Yes. That is correct, sir."

"Tell us what exactly happened, Miss Granger, if you will."

"Yes, sir. "

* * *

_Every single night, I am back in that damn room. The air was frozen, and tense. The magnificent ebony fireplace was completely empty, not a splinter of wood left in its cavern, nor a single speck of ash. That devil woman's shoes click-click-clicked closer to where I stood, still and pale. I didn't look into her wasted, insane eyes, no- I looked at Draco. Draco, my schoolmate, who I'd fought petty fights with for years. I pleaded silently with him, and in his face I saw raw, unadulterated fear. No, Draco did not want to see me tortured anymore than I wanted to be tortured. But what could he, a mere boy, do to save me?_

* * *

Now, I find myself enraged at his weakness. Harry was a boy, too. Ron. Neville. And yet they did all they could for what was right, risked their lives to keep the Light burning! Draco had that power in him. He had the power to save me. But he didn't.

At least I know that he burns with me, every night. How could he not?

* * *

_"Well, Mudblood? How. Did. You. Get. Into. My. VAULT?!" She screamed at me again, spit flying onto my face, deranged eyes only inches from mine. The stone floor beneath me was cold, I remember, and my body was so tense... I was expecting the first Cruciatus to hit me any second. That woman had slapped me, kicked me, tripped my feet from beneath me until I'd fallen flat to the floor._

_"I didn't! I SWEAR!" I screamed back, and cringed into the stone when she raised her arm, opening that dark gash of her mouth in utter rage._

_"_CRUCIO_!"_

_And then I was gone. I was nothing. I was a bundle of nerves that was soaking in acid, acid with fingers of razor blades that were sliding along my skin, skin that was peeling sickeningly from the muscle, muscle that was being shredded with a chainsaw, and bones breaking, grinding against each other, snapping and catching on my decaying body. Decaying, and yet so alive, because the pain didn't stop, and I still had a body to scream with, oh yes, and scream I did._

_Feet. In black dress shoes. That was what I first saw, coming to after the initial round of pain. Letting my gaze follow up the legs that the shoes belonged to, I found myself looking into the tormented eyes of Draco Malfoy. And when the curse hit me again, I screamed to him. I screamed in utter agony, letting my shrill cries slice up his spine, because he could stop this, damn it, he had the power-_

_But then the pain was too much and I screamed for no one but myself, until I was reduced into nothing to scream for anyways. Because a pile of charred ashes has no throat, no mouth, to scream with, surely?_

* * *

JUNE 19, 1998

I am one of the few to have the 'privilege' of watching Bellatrix Lestrange lose her soul. I stand beside Neville and his Gran. The old witch's eyes are chips of colorless ice, the ghost of a smile on her lips. Neville stares at a spot to the left of Bellatrix's head, hands clenched into fists at his side as tears run unashamedly down his cheeks.

Ron's fingers are entwined very tightly around mine, wrapping them in purple bruises, and I _need_ that. I need that pain to keep me from collapsing in sheer exhaustion, sheer terror. That terror that lingers, even after the Final Battle, because when you live so closely with terror for so long I don't think it can really ever leave.

But you can fight it.

So, as the rattling breaths of the dementor gliding up to that wasted, broken woman grow louder, I focus my gaze only on the cobalt eyes above me. Ron stared back down at me, pale, and with a disgusted satisfaction in his eyes. He, at least, is happy to see the woman who tortured me punished.

I hear a muffled scream, a gag, and a hollow whooshing.

Closing my eyes, I lean into Ron's chest, bury my head in it, and he wraps his arms around me.

Safe.

* * *

_Screaming screaming blood shit OW razors acid burning wires cutting tight across my skin NO help help no one to hear my screams-_

_no one there-_

_help me god help me help help help help-_

_no, no, no, no, NO NO NO NONONO!_

I wake myself with a scream, pain pulsing through my body. Another souvenir from that night. Permanent Cruciatus aftershocks. She _Crucio_'d me until the curse seeped into my nerves, which, when overstimulated, now send shocks of white-hot pain all over my body.

It happens when I laugh too hard, cough too deeply, move too quickly, bang my hip against my desk or my shoulder against my doorframe. When I eat spicy food or my drink goes down the wrong pipe. It happens sometimes when Ron kisses me goodnight outside my door or when his lips linger over mine.

It also happens every time I dream. Every. Single. Time.

And I dream every night. Although it's not so much dreaming, as revisiting my worst memories in grotesque nightmares.

Every night, I dance with demons wielding whips of fire and wake to find that it is indeed my reality.

* * *

SEPTEMBER 13, 1998

It's getting hard to keep my head up. To interact. To pretend everything's normal and swell.

My brave mask has cracks in it.

And it's Ron, of course, that sees through it. But there's nothing he can do, and when he asks what's wrong I just shrug.

"Nothing's wrong anymore, Ron. Harry fixed it all, didn't he?" I try not to sound bitter, because I'm not.

But it's starting to feel like I'm living on borrowed time. That I should have laid down next to Tonks and Remus and Fred on that marble floor in the Great Hall, laid down, closed my eyes, and waited to be carried away to oblivion.

No matter. Oblivion is not for me, anyways. I know now that the only place I'll be going is hell.

I'm familiar enough with the landscape, aren't I?

* * *

_"How did you get in, you useless girl, how?!"_

_"I DIDN'T, I SWEAR, I-"_

_"_CRUCIO_!"_

_Pain. Utter pain. So perfect in its completeness, how there's not a shred of me left alone by the burning._

_"HERMIONE!"_

_I know that voice._

_And suddenly, the pain is gone and the room is back, swirling around me in a disgusting whirlpool of black and gray. I'm hauled up, pulled back into sharp boniness, and there's something sharp against my throat._

_Something in me wants to lean into what I know is a knife._

_Words. Meaningless words, passed over fathomless spaces. I sway, seeing nothing. Gray, gray, gray. _

_And then a screech and I'm falling, falling to my death, I know it-_

_But strong arms catch me._

_The owner of the arms smells nice. Like freshly mown grass._

_I lean into them and everything goes totally black._

* * *

SEPTEMBER 27, 1998

"Hermione? Hermione! Wake up, love, you're having a nightmare." I hear a soft, persistent whisper, and unconsciously brace myself for the pain I know waking will bring. There's a darkness over my eyes and I can't see through it.

"Hermione?" That voice...

A flash of blue penetrates the darkness, and I gasp, eyes flying open as I bolt upright.

Ron is sitting on my bed. Without a shirt on, and just in his boxers. Why?

Doesn't matter, because _pain pain pain_ shoots through me, as usual, but no matter how often it comes I can't get used to it. I shake violently, though I'm stiff as a board. Gritting my teeth, I try to keep the pain off my face.

"Hermione, what's wrong? Hermione?!" Ron's voice is demanding, worried, but I can't placate him right now.

"H-Hold me... Help, hold m-me." I gasp out.

Ron scoops me up into his arms and lays us out on the bed, me facing in to his chest as his arms wind tight around my back. I shudder as the last twinge leeches away, and press my face into his bare torso. Mm. So warm.

He doesn't say anything, but his hands rub soothing circles on my back, waiting for me to be well enough to explain what just happened.

"Ron?" I ask, wincing at the coarseness of my voice. I must've screamed in the night. His lips trail across my forehead and I snuggle in closer to him.

"Yeah, love?"

"Why are you here, in your pajamas?"

He clears his throat, a little sheepishly. I've known him long enough to even tell what the differences in his throat-clearings are.

"Well... I was going to surprise you. I wanted you to wake up, in my arms, safe and happy. I thought it might be nice, since you've seemed so..." He trails off, unable to find a word to describe how I've been acting lately. "Anyways, that went to hell when I Flooed into your living room. I could hear you screaming from there, so I ran back here and found you thrashing all around."

Ah.

My turn to clear my throat sheepishly. "Just a bad dream, Ron. Thanks for waking me."

_Now keep them away, lover, and hold me safe in your arms for eternity..._

"Anytime. Now, let's get some sleep. It's only four in the morning, after all." He slides the comforter up over us and pulls me tighter against him.

I know that I'll have to lie here awake until he wakes up, so I don't terrify him with my screams.

* * *

Eventually I wake to hear a frightened moan-

Wait.

Wake?

I... I slept? Without _nightmares_? But that hasn't happened since before the night Ron left Harry and I in the forest... No matter, because as my eyes flutter open I see Ron's face close to mine, eyes screwed up tight and his teeth worrying his bottom lip. He groans again, and I try to reach up my arm to shake him awake, but I'm trapped tightly in his embrace and can barely move.

"Ron. Wake up!" I say, still disoriented at abrupt end of the few good hours of sleep I must've had. His arms only clench harder around me. He's mumbling now, and I can just barely make out what he's saying.

"No... Not her... _Come back_, c'mere... _Stop_... Help... _Help_... Hermione. _HERMIONE_!" He screams suddenly, eyes flying open, dazed and terrified. Ron's gaze locks with mine and at first he doesn't recognize me, I can tell, as he shoves me from him violently. I roll across the bed, stunned, before his arm wraps back around my waist and drags me to him. He pulls himself against my back and holds me tightly.

"'Mione. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, sorry, so sorry, sorry...," Ron trails off, and I'm shocked to feel him sobbing into my hair. Carefully, I twist around until I'm facing him and raise my hand to his cheek.

"What is it, Ron?" I whisper.

He shudders, and looks me in the eyes. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop her. Bellatrix. I-" He gasps raggedly, "-I should have been able to but I didn't, and she hurt you, and I'm so sorry. So sorry." There is so much pain in his eyes, those baby blues that used to be so innocent.

Neither of us are very innocent. Not anymore.

"Ron," I say firmly, annoyance growing swiftly. He flinches, eyes shying from my gaze, but I'm not having it. "Ron. Look at me." He does, and I place my hand on his chest and push him away enough that I can sit up on my elbow and loom over him a bit.

"Do you really think what she did to me was your fault, Ronald?" I ask, voice clipped. He nods solemnly, opening his mouth to apologize again, I'm sure, but I cut him off. "You are a damned idiot, then, Ronald Weasley," I huff in annoyance, dropping my upper body back down on the bed.

"Don't try and deny it, Hermione," he mumbles pathetically. "I could've stopped them, I just wasn't quick enough, I couldn't think of a plan-"

"Shut it!" I know that if I make him angry, put some fire in his eyes, he'll pull himself out of his slump. And look, there's a tiny flame in his cerulean eyes now. "There was nothing we could do, and if it hadn't happened, we'd've lost the war."

"How d'you reckon that?" He demands. His harsh tone doesn't quite have the effect it should when his hand is learning the softness of the skin on my lower back, and I try not to smile.

"Think about it, Ronald. If you'd stopped them from taking me, they would've moved to Harry. He never would've had the chance to grab Draco's wand, yadda yadda, Elder wand Elder wand, we all would have died. See?"

He glares at me.

"I don't give a rat's shiny pink arse. You were fucking _tortured_, Hermione. And I heard your screams, I heard them, and I will hear them until the day I die. That's why it doesn't matter if it's not 'my fault'. It doesn't change a damn fucking thing." His defiance is utterly heartbreaking. Ron, as completely fucked up as me? It's not right. And yet, it's there.

I don't say anything else. There's really nothing left to say. I just burrow into his chest and with his arms tight around me, the demons are kept at bay. But still, they lurk, just beyond the threshold of sweet sleep.

* * *

_Hello! I've been working on this oneshot off and on for a few days. I really wanted the ending to go differently, to be happier, but it really wasn't working out. I hope you still managed to enjoy, and there might be an edit or epilogue in the future!_

_**Forgot to put this in when I first uploaded the story. The only AU aspect of this is that Bellatrix survived the Final Battle. I needed her to, for the purpose of this story. A lovely reviewer pointed that out to me, so thank you! Didn't want to confuse anyone._

_Ciao,_

_raspberryjukebox_


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